Something, Somewhere, Is Not Fair
by Ys
Summary: He won her and then he lost her... My answer to the WIKTT Challenge: Picture the Story 2. Based on the pictures Craving by Elyse Camille and The End of the World, by Silene. SSHG
1. Craving

**Disclaimer**: never did and never will own it. J.K. Rowling does.   
**Spoilers**: Order of the Phoenix 

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**~ Craving ~**

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Story based on Elyse Camille's picture Craving.

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I had to go away. Trust Albus to find a way to throw in a celebration when nothing calls for it. It should have been the Leaving Feast for the Dream Team of Potter, Weasley and Granger. It had turned into a gigantic chaos, where interpellations fused from one side of the Great Hall to the other side and laughter rang and everybody smiled. Everybody but me, naturally, brooding as usual. So I left. 

~*~

Now I'm in the dark corridors. I can still hear the laughter behind me, but it seems very far. Then I hear a soft voice, something I wouldn't even have dreamed of hearing: 

"Professor?" 

I turn slowly and she's here, truly here, standing in front of me, in a gown of dark green velvet. If someone had told me earlier that only a Gryffindor could wear so well the Slytherin green, I would have laughed to make my ribs hurt. But now I don't laugh, because there is this vision in front of me. She had proven everybody wrong in her fourth year, showing she could be beautiful. And she proves it again tonight. 

Something, somewhere, is not fair. I left the celebration because I wanted to avoid her. And she followed me outside. A wink of fate? My heart aches just by looking at her. She doesn't know, I made sure of that. I didn't want her to laugh at me and ridicule me. But now that she's looking at me, I'm not so sure that I chose right. 

~*~

Slowly, carefully, as if she fears a rebuke, she says: 

"Severus?" 

My name on her lips is my undoing. I take one step, one giant step to close the distance between us, and I pull her in my arms. She doesn't fight me, she just looks up at me and smiles. Oh, I just love the light in her eyes, the light that tells me I made the move she couldn't bring herself to make. 

I raise my hand to her cheek; that's all I can allow myself, I have no right to do more. But she smiles again and leans in my touch, half-closing her eyes. I can't hold any longer. My hand slides to cradle her neck and I lean forward to kiss her. 

Surprise could not begin to describe what I feel when she entangles her fingers in my hair, pulling my head closer to hers, pressing her lips to mine. Her kiss matches mine in fierceness and I lose completely my restraint. There is no way I can resist her and I don't even intend to try. 

~*~

I knew nothing of love until I met her. I knew nothing of craving until I tasted her lips. Now I know what love is. It's staring at me in the face just right now. Love has the face of Hermione Granger. Now I know what craving is. Craving has the same sweet, tangy taste as her lips. Each time I have to stop kissing her to breathe, I feel the urge to kiss her again. I crave for her touch, for her lips on mine, for her hands on my shoulders, for her in my arms. 

I wonder how I lasted so long without her. I yearn for her, only her, and in her eyes, I can see she feels the same. I know there is danger outside and that we both are privileged targets, but in the light of her smile, I forget the danger, I forget everything in her kiss, everything but her. 


	2. The End of the World

**Disclaimer**: never did and never will own it. J.K. Rowling does.   
**Spoilers**: Order of the Phoenix 

* * *

**~ The End of the World ~**

* * *

Story based on Silene's picture The End of the World.

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Something, somewhere, is not fair. I have given them seventeen years of my life, all for nothing. The only light in my life is no more and it was a green light that sent me back in the dark. Fate has a twisted sense of humour. 

~*~

I didn't want any reward; I had everything I wanted. Had I looked in the Mirror of Erised, I would have seen nothing different from what a Muggle mirror would have shown me. I was happy. But I obviously had no right to happiness, so they destroyed it. 

They could have killed me, if they really had wanted to punish me for what I did before I came to work for them. Or they could have sent me to Azkaban. Anything to end the pain I'm in now. But it would have hurt her and I can't bear her tears. So fate found another way to punish me. They took her from me. 

~*~

Seventeen years of good and loyal services and two months of happiness. Then that fateful day of the last battle. She was in the middle of it, or rather, in the front lines, even more ahead than Potter. She was by my side and I can still remember her voice in the darkness of our room when she told me she feared nothing as long as she was by my side. She feared nothing, not even death. Yet death found her. 

It was not even Voldemort, though I could see our very existences irked him to no end. Gryffindor and Slytherin, Muggle-born witch and pure-blood wizard. Everything he hated, yet he didn't even have his chance against us. Death came from that pitiful excuse for a human being called Peter Pettigrew. Wormtail. What an appropriate nickname. I couldn't believe it when his curse hit her. It should have been me. 

She collapsed against me without a word, the last light in her eyes telling me of her love for me. Her love, her sweet, redeeming love for me, that I never understood, but that I accepted nonetheless. Wrenching pain filled me and then I existed only for the hatred running in my veins. 

I hunted down Wormtail; I didn't even kill him right now and then. I brought him back to Lupin, who had as much desire to kill him as I had. Azkaban was heaven compared to what we did to make him pay. But no matter how sweet revenge was, it still left a bitter taste. It didn't bring her back to me. 

~*~

I don't know how to deal with pain. Usually I conceal it with anger or sarcasm. But today, I'm so engulfed in sorrow that I can't lash at anyone. I just want to lie here and die. I'm still holding her in my arms, her body so cold, half-hoping I could give her some warmth, that she would open her eyes and smile at me. 

Two months. I had this beautiful angel to me for two months. Two months since we shared that breathtaking, mind-blowing kiss that started it all. One week after and she was mine, my bride, my loving bride. She gave me her love unconditionally, though I was awkward expressing mine. Two months filled with more happiness than I had felt in my whole life, two months during which she made me feel alive. 

She was my life. My life, my love, my wife. And now, I'm on the verge of tears, nuzzling her neck, begging her to come back. But she won't come back, ever. For most people, she's just a casualty of the war. It infuriates me even more than it infuriates Potter. For once, we both agree on something. But it hit me deeper. He lost a friend. I lost everything. For me, the death of my Hermione is the end of the world. 


End file.
